…but our family traditions are changing. It’s not an easy thing because, as you know, without Tradition, life is precarious as a fiddler on the roof. Right? Right.
So, here’s my short spiel.
We’ve always used a clothes dryer. It’s a tradition. The Girl’s mama used one, and her mama’s mama before her. But, now, we now have to shlep the wet laundry from the washing machine out to the clothesline in the backyard. Why? Is our dryer broken, you ask? No. Are we trying to save some money, maybe? No. So, why do we hang the clothes? It’s because, over the weekend, we saw the film, Fiddler on the Roof, and Girl was charmed off her feet by this scene.
You’re probably wondering if she now wants me to “find her a find, catch her a catch” and select a future husband for her, too. No. We’re not changing things like that; just traditions having to do with laundry. Oy.
It’s sounds like it might be a glorious experience. Enjoy it! Life is short. It’s raining torrentials everyday here so my laundry, that can avoid the dryer, is hung all over the house. My house looks like one of those back alley laundries in the old black and white films right now.
Oh how I love your Girl! And finding her a nice Jewish boy….well, there are worse things :). But then again, I have a thing for nice Jewish boys.
Don’t worry. The “charm” will wear thin very quickly. :)
rofl…We just moved out to acreage last month. This is the first place we’ve lived where there aren’t CC&R’s that prohibit clotheslines, so I was very excited to have one! I always enjoyed hanging clothes with my mom growing up…even in the AZ summers.
I have been surprised to see my kids eagerness to help me hang and fetch the clothes! My dd *fights* with me to hang them!
Novelty, perhaps? :)
michelle:
Not at all. Don’t listen to Nance. The charm of laundry won’t wear off. Would I lie? :D
Carol:
There is a couple (from India) in our neighborhood who were “matched” by their mothers and swear by arranged marriages. Maybe I should invite them to dinner to have a talk with The Girl. <:D
Miss Roxie,
Yes, I’ll always treasure these moments with my daughter – especially as she grows older. :)
Arranged marriage and no major appliances. Hmmm. . . tell Girl we are in the 21st Century here, if she wants to visit. :)
Off to put towels in the dryer before driving to Miami — yes, cars too :) — to visit Gramma. She still hangs her laundry out to dry . . . not by choice, though. . . her little house has no place for a dryer. Just a washer. Strange. . .
LMAO at “Arranged marriage and no major appliances.” I’m going to blame Christian homeschooling conventions for planting the ideas in our heads. Speaking of planting… I should go tend the crops. Husband is growing our food this year… in the backyard… right next to the clothesline.
Can denim jumpers be far behind? :)
Just got back from visiting Mom. Not only does she recycle like mad, hang her laundry to dry and otherwise take up as little space and create as little waste as a human possibly can, now she’s getting a contraption to make compost to use in her garden/yard.
Well, at least one of us is a good person. :)
Who knows anything about antique quilts? Anyone???? Mom has some and wants me to figure out if they are worth anything.
Nance: “…now she’s getting a contraption to make compost ”
Hey, we have one of those! :)
Don’t know a thing about antique quilts unfortunately. :(
Off to an art faire…
We live in California, and back in the early summer of 2001 (or was it 2000?) we were terrorized by rolling blackouts, as we were being ripped off by those evildoers at Enron (HA! Loved it when they crashed and burned a few years later), we were told to watch every bit of energy we used. So we sat in the dark in the hot summer evenings, sweating. We unplugged the VCR and microwave when not using them, so the clocks wouldn’t use energy. We fretted. And we bought a clothes line. My findings were that the clothes weren’t as soft, and needed to be ironed, which many of them wouldn’t have if they were in the dryer. I don’t know if that’s our hard water out here, or the fact that we live in a condo right next to a parking lot with all that that implies, or maybe that’s just how it is. But when they tore our fence down and put up a new one, we didn’t replace the clothes line.
Stupid Enron asshats.
Hi J, :)
I’m actually still at the clothesline, though Girl’s interest has waned, of course. I went back to using the dryer for jeans and towels; I don’t mind the scratchy towels, but I’ve been overruled – and the jeans are just too stiff and uncomfortable for all of us. I find that fabric softener helps a lot, but it seems like I’m now swapping how one environmental harm for another. Oy. All that gets line dried every time now – and w/o fabric softener – is sheets. Warm summer days; gentle breezes… just like in the movie. :)
Funny, I’ve lived in California all my life – with the exception of one year, during those blackouts. Unless my memory is blacking out (which sometimes happens), I don’t remember that summer.
By the way, is it my imagination or are we getting a lot more humidity now. I went looking for some climate data, but I was interrupted and never got back to it. Maybe I had laundry to hang. :)